Spirituality And Aboriginal Life In Monkey Beach By Eden Robinson

Monkey Beach

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson, a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations in Canada, is a captivating and gripping novel that tackles the concept of spirituality and Aboriginal life in a recent post Residential School time. Residential Schools, which were a type of boarding school for Canadian Aboriginal youth set up by white religious organizations started in the 1880’s and continued all the way into the late 1990’s, were such abusive and toxic environments mentally, emotionally, and physically, the aftermath not only affected the generation which survived them first hand but also the generations after and still has many consequences today. Robinsons protagonist, Lisa, is apart of the first generation of Aboriginal youth

While also navigating life as an adolescent, Lisa is forced to deal with the actions of her family yet she does not even understand why they are acting this way and what caused it. The novel starts in a present time but often goes into the past memories and events of Lisa. There are many themes in the book such as sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse, and death but they all circle back to the main theme of Aboriginal lifer in Canada. Through Lisa and her family, Robinson creates a novel that symbolises the harsh life as an Aboriginal adolescent in Canada, especially as a woman, and the intergenerational effects caused by Residential Schools.

Depression is a common theme in the lives of many Aboriginal people in Canada which can attribute to the

In 2009 a study showed that the employment rate for Aboriginal people was at 57.1% and 75.8% for non-Aboriginal people. Because the rate of unemployment is so high, this forces people to take on dangerous jobs in order to provide just the bare minimum for them and their families. This is represented with Micks tragic death. “My father had pulled Mick’s corpse from the net and wrapped him in a tarp. Mick’s face, right arm, and part of his left leg has been eaten off by seals and crabs” (148). Many of the men in Robinson’s novel are familiar with unemployment which caused them to work as fishermen, a very dangerous job, but one that would put food on the table and keep themselves and/or their family above the poverty line. Lisa’s family especially is hit hard by problems associated with employment as her father was recently turned down a promotion at his job due to his race. There is plenty of repressed anger in many Aboriginal people caused by these issues which is eventually brought out in very harmful forms such as substance and drug abuse and Lisa’s father is sadly but not surprisingly a victim of that repression. But the difference is that Lisa’s father did not let this get to him badly compared to other people in her life such as Pooch who sadly took his own life due to